A/N: *makes sad eyes at you.* I know you are reading this. Why won't you review for me? End A/N.
***
Murderer Zim was awakened by the computer sounding an alarm. "Enemy spy probe detected during routine scan!" the computer informed him practically. "Shall I destroy it?" The computer waited eagerly, hovering about his head as if gleefully anticipating the moment when he'd order it to destroy the probe. Maybe Tak's computer just likes smashing things, Murderer Zim thought dully.
"No," Murderer Zim ordered, sitting upright in his chair. "Track it. I want to know who is spying on me so I can pay them a personal visit." He glanced over at the still-unconscious Tak, quietly sleeping with oxygen tubes running down her throat.
"Yes, sir," the computer responded, Irken symbols flying across the screen.
"After all, what good is stomping on individual ants if you can't kill the Queen?" Murderer Zim muttered to himself, watching the flying numbers.
"Location of source feed pinpointed. Printing coordinates now."
Snatching the print out, Murderer Zim cut through the silence of the night He was glad that the rain had finished coming down. He didn't like the rain, but he still had to be careful to avoid the wet on the sidewalks. He bounded over fences and across roofs on his mechanical legs, nothing more than a spidery shadow to those few night owls that managed to catch a glimpse of him and wonder what the hell they had just seen.
The house he skidded to a stop in front of was a deep blue-purple, surrounded by a protective energy field. Murderer Zim was unimpressed; the energy shield couldn't have kept out a determined puppy. Leaping agilely over it he crossed the lush, over-fertilized lawn. He climbed up the side of the house, following the satellite surveillance feed the computer had provided him with.
His mechanical spider legs left little pits in the side of the house as he ascended to Dib's window. Slowly, he raised his dark red eyes over the ledge of the window and peeped in.
Dib was sitting with his back to the window, writing something on legal paper. His hair was hanging slightly limply against his body, damp from his afternoon shower. His trench coat lay forlornly on the end of his bed.
All the better for me if he's not paying attention, thought Murderer Zim. He slowly extended one cold metal spider leg and began quietly melting his way through the glass on the window. The only sound it made a faint little sizzling, barely audible above the sound of the CD player resting on Dib's desk.
The glass fell away easily. Murderer Zim was as silent as possible as he placed the glass on the roof and crawled through the window. The big headed child doesn't even notice me, he thought with a small chuckle.
The second his foot set down on the carpet, however, a blaring alarm sounded. Murderer Zim screeched as Dib whirled around, water gun in hand. "Freeze, alien scum sucker!" Dib cried dramatically. He'd struck a pose that was sheer anime; not that Murderer Zim knew what anime was in any case.
"Anything, anything! Just turn off that alarm!" Murderer Zim cried, cringing in pain from the noise.
Dib flipped a switch and silence ensued. Murderer Zim, however, found himself staring down the barrel of a long, odd-looking green gun. It was only a water gun, but Murderer Zim had no way of knowing that. He hissed angrily, thinking he was up against some advanced alien technology.
Out of the corner of his eye, Murderer Zim noticed Dib's laptop. On it, security camera displays were showing of Zim's base as well as Tak's base. One of them switched over to Tak lying on her back, a ventilation tube hooked over her mouth, her arms wrapped in bandages. And, Murderer Zim noticed, she was covered in only a thin sheet.
That… that pervert, Murderer Zim fumed inwardly. He let out a shout of rage, leaping forward. Caught by surprise, Dib stumped backwards, tripping over a digital camera left on his floor. As he fell backwards Murderer Zim kicked upward, hitting the water gun and causing it to fly straight up in the air.
As Dib fell flat on his back, letting out an "oof" from the dull pain the impact caused, Murderer Zim snatched the gun out of the air and pointed it straight at Dib's head. Lying on his side, Dib looked up and into the barrel of the gun.
"HOW DARE YOU PEEK AT A LADY LIKE THAT?" he snarled, his hands shaking as he held the gun. "YOU DISGUSTING STINK MONSTER!"
Dib crawled backwards, hearing a thud as his back met with the wall. Murderer Zim stood between him and the wall. "Ga…" he began to shout.
Murderer Zim kicked him across the face, sending his body sideways. His glasses fell off and skittered across the floor, leaving Dib nearly blinded. A sticky smear of blood ran down his pale skin from where Murderer Zim's boot had hit.
Murderer Zim stepped down hard on his hand as Dib felt across the carpet, trying to find his glasses. Wincing in pain, Dib attempted to pull his hand free. Murderer Zim stepped down harder. Electric shots of pain shot through the nerves, and Dib heard small bones crunching.
"Get ready to die!" Murderer Zim screeched, planting the water gun against Dib's head. Feeling satisfied, he pulled the trigger.
Thus, Murderer Zim was more than confused when Dib started laughing hysterically, despite his probably broken wrist. "But… I shot you!" he cried in irritation, shooting Dib repeatedly in the head and chest with the water gun. "What the hell?" Murderer Zim asked, trying to see into the chamber where the bullets should be. A bit of water dripped out of the gun and into his eye, causing him to run around the room screaming in hideous pain.
His glasses regained, Dib tucked the wounded hand into his armpit and continued to rock with laughter. His ribs ached from laughing so hard that it nearly canceled out the pain on crunched bones and nerves. Murderer Zim, meanwhile, was running blindly around the room in circles while cursing enough in Irken to shame even the hardest soldier.
In his panic, Murderer Zim slammed into Dib's desk. The impact jarred the computer to pop up the video playback window. Through his one good eye, Murderer Zim watched in fascination as Invader Zim's new spy bug exploded, turning Zim's green face to black ash.
Murderer Zim couldn't help it. Despite the pain in his eye, he collapsed to the floor, laughing nearly as hard as Dib. "That's GREAT! That's great, great, GREAT!" he howled, pounding a fist on the floor. "Got any more?"
"Are you kidding? I have a Zim bloopers reel… hey, wait a minute! You're Zim! You shouldn't find your own pain funny!"
Murderer Zim attempted to straighten out, still unable to open his water-wounded eye. He clamped a gloved hand over it. "I told you already… I am Murderer Zim, and I find Invader Zim's pain very, very funny." He paused. "Sorry about breaking your hand, by the way."
For some reason, that set them both off into hysterical giggles again. Really, a broken hand probably wasn't funny, but neither of them was in a proper mindset at the moment.
When there was a break in the laughter, Murderer Zim smiled. "Yes, yes, I want to see your bloopers reel!"
Dib hesitated. This could very well seemed like a trick, but Invader Zim also didn't seem that clever. Or that able to laugh at his own pain and setbacks. At any rate, even if it wasn't Zim, it was another Irken. Why should he trust any of those planet hopping space looters?
"Do you have an extra copy? I really need to get back to the base…" he said, his voice drifting off as he looked back over his shoulder. He wanted to be there when she came too. He didn't want her to think he'd abandoned her.
"I… suppose I do…," Dib said hesitantly.
"Look, I'm not after your planet, which I understand is your main concern. I only want my revenge on Invader Zim, and them I'm going home to my own dimension. I'm not a threat. Not that I expect you to believe that, but I'm telling the truth." He paused. "Want to come back to Tak's base with me and watch them together? I'll make popcorn."
"No thanks, but I'm not keen on walking into death traps," Dib retorted. Now that the adrenaline was wearing off, his broken hand had begun to throb dully. Damn, he was going to have to go to the Emergency Room. That meant not only explaining it to his dad, but also bearing the fat nurse laughing and asking if he injured it while staking a vampire.
"Suit yourself," he commented dully. "Can I take the disk and go?"
"There should be an extra on that shelving unit," Dib gestured with his head, as he was using his good arm to cradle his damaged hand. Murderer Zim strutted over to the unit.
"You're right. Here it is," he said dully, tucking the disk under his arm. "I wouldn't suggest you spy on Tak again, lest I come back and break your legs." With that, he departed back out the window he'd come in, leaving Dib in a crumpled heap on the floor of his own bedroom.
As soon as Murderer Zim was too far gone to be implicated in breaking Dib's hand, a voiced shouted from the hallway "What was all that screaming?" Professor Membrane threw open the door to find his son sprawled across the floor, studying fingers that were rapidly turning black and blue.
Professor Membrane misunderstood exactly how Dib had injured his hand. Bending down, he put a gloved palm on Dib's shoulder. "Son, I hadn't been noticing how mature you were getting! It's time the two of us sat down and talked about 'the birds and the bees."
Dib stared up at his father, praying he wouldn't start laughing again. It wasn't the appropriate time, and the Professor wouldn't understand. "Oh, I already know all about that stuff… I mean, I watch television movies."
After the Professor contorted around for a few moments in irritation at Dib's nonchalant answer, he grabbed Dib by the good arm and dragged him downstairs, throwing him on the couch. Dib's hand had begun to ache like never before by that time, but there was no point in trying to explain that to his father. He never listened anyway.
"Son, as a good father I should be having this talk with you. I've put it off long enough. Now," the Professor said, pulling a videotape off the shelves. "Watch this video I recorded about the scientific effects of pu-ber-ty. If you have any questions, the video tape has numbers you can call at the end of it. I'll be in my lab." With that, the professor was gone.
Dib sighed, flicked off the television, and made his way to the phone hanging on the wall. "Hello, 911? Yes, I need…" he sighed. "Yes, I am the vampire hunting kid. No, I did not put a stake through my foot again."